Question

Basically, the cellForRowAtIndexPath function need to return a UITableViewCell. In my code, I would like to check a behaviour that will check something and skip the cell if a specific value is found.

Here’s what I have right now :

static NSString *FirstCellIdentifier = @"First Custom Cell";
static NSString *SecondCellIdentifier = @"Second Custom Cell";

CustomObject *o = [_customObjects objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];

if ([s.name isEqualToString:@""])
{
    FirstCellController *cell = [customList dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:FirstCellIdentifier];
    if (!cell) { 
        NSArray *topLevelObjects = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"FirstCustomCell" owner:self options:nil];
        for (id currentObject in topLevelObjects){
            if ([currentObject isKindOfClass:[UITableViewCell class]]){
                cell = (FirstCellController *) currentObject;
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    // Here I do something with the cell's content
    return cell;
}
else {
    SecondCellController *cell = [customList dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:SecondCellIdentifier];
    if (!cell) {
        NSArray *topLevelObjects = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"SecondCustomCell" owner:self options:nil];
        for (id currentObject in topLevelObjects){
            if ([currentObject isKindOfClass:[UITableViewCell class]]){
                cell = (SecondCellController *) currentObject;
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    // Here i do something with the cell's content
    return cell;
}

What I’d like to do is that if the s.name is not empty, I would like to “skip” the cell, not displaying it and go to the next one.

Anyone have some advice on this please ?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You cannot “skip” a cell this way. If your datasource claims there are n rows, then you have to provide a cell for each of them. The correct way would be to modify your datasource to claim (n-1) rows when you want to remove one, then call UITableView reloadData to have it regenerate the table (and ask you for new cells for each visible row).

Another option would be to “hide” a row/cell. The technique I’ve used for this is to provide a height of 0 for the given cell via heightForRowAtIndexPath: